Page 65 of The Howling
“What do you want, Linton?” he snaps, picking up an apple and handing it to me before he grabs half a chicken and devours it like he’s half starved.
I feel a pang of guilt that he is this hungry. After all, I wasn’t sick. I was needy.
Linton picks up a sweet bun which has white icing and what looks like a cherry on the top. He sniffs it and puts it back again.
“I didn’t come to kill you or your mate. Or the Hedley Kow.”
“But you know about all of us.”
“There is a contract.” Linton inspects a singing hinnie. “Do you really eat these?” he asks.
“Yes,” Reavely growls, snatching the plate with the pile of the sweet treats away from him. “What do you mean there’s a contract?”
“A contract to kill us?” I whisper, looking at Reavely, the apple turning to ash in my mouth. “That’s what he means.”
“Who wants to kill us?” Reavely says.
Linton fixes him with his blood red eyes. Reavely doesn’t waver, matching him glare for glare.
“Because I can assure you, no one will ever kill us,” he adds with a snarl.
Linton spins a dagger in the air, catches it, and slides it back under his wing.
“You shouldn’t have messed with Lord Guyzance,” Linton says. “He has equally as powerful Faerie friends.”
“No one is as powerful as a Barghest.”
Linton shrugs. “Maybe not, but you have a mate now, and as you know, Barghest pups are prized by the Faerie.”
I let slip with a swear word. “Is this true?” I look up at Reavely who has a hinnie halfway to his mouth.
“If pups were so prized, why kill my entire family?” he says, venom dripping from his words as he looks at Linton.
The Bluecap shivers, as if a wind no one else can feel has blown through him and I notice I haven’t seen any of the spirit Barghest pack since Linton arrived.
Given how nosy they are, this is strange behaviour. Something about Linton is keeping them away.
“Your father made enemies of the wrong people,” Linton says, his eyes a darker red than ever. “Lord Guyzance and Lord Soulis were not ones to mess with. And goading them like he did, it was only ever going to result in one outcome.”
Reavely growls
“The fact you were taken by the Reaper and hired out to the Faerie changes nothing when it comes to their revenge,” he adds. “And the Night Lands were nothing compared to what is coming.”
REAVELY
Despite being a prophet of doom, Linton shows little desire to vacate my castle. Even with my sweet mate offering him sustenance, I know the creature will not take any, generous though her heart is.
Bluecaps, once spirits of the underground, want only one thing. The thing which shows in his eyes. And it’s a good reason why both Bluecaps are relegated to assassins and shunned even more than a Barghest.
Linton is the most dangerous of them all. Not because of his desire for blood—there are many carnivorous creatures in the Yeavering—but because he is even more unstable than the Lambton Wyrm. He didn’t just kill in the Night Lands, he destroyed. And he did these things because, at the time, he had no choice.
Even on a creature like him, it will leave an indelible mark on his psyche.
His presence in my castle means I have a sleeping volcano of a creature who could explode when I least expect it.
I do not need him in my life again.
Having suggested to my mate she might like to find the Hedley Kow, I keep a careful eye on Linton as she departs, albeit reluctantly.
